The OIC Council of Foreign Ministers meeting as well as the March 23 parade are behind us, yet the political landscapes is hardly any clearer than last week. Both the government and opposition parties are equally confident of embarrassing the other with their road shows and then adding insult to injury by humiliating them when the no confidence motion is voted upon. Both are also counting on PTI’s coalition partners – PML-Q, MQM-P, BAP – to side with them on that fateful day. Too add to the confusion, some senior ministers have hinted at possible talks aimed at a haw, but the PM himself has ruled all such things out very firmly. He’s also boasted of having a special trump card, which he plans to put on the table one day before the voting; so the situation is not clear at all.
In all this time the federal cabinet has been able to meet only once, and that too very briefly, which means that the government’s functioning is compromised to a large extent. One wonders, given all the confusion, why the government opted for delaying tactics after first claiming very openly that it wanted to go ahead with necessary no confidence proceedings as soon as possible because it was confident about its numbers. Since then it’s practically bent over backwards to find some way of putting some sort of political or legal spanner in the works. And while it’s still working that part out, it’s favoured strategy, quite clearly, is discrediting the opposition as much as possible in the public space.
As feared often enough in this space, the paralysis that has gripped the government means it is not working in the interest of the people, which is its foremost constitutional responsibility. These are hard times, after all, and the ruling party’s attempt to sooth anxious nerves with its recent relief package has already run afoul of the IMF, and the next two tranches of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) are now in jeopardy. And even now all political parties expect the people, who are suffering because of their obsession with power politics, to flood out onto the streets and lend support to their power shows.
Yet if the people should come out for anything at this particular point in time, it is to demand their rights and remind the political elite of their most basic duty.
